Origin: New York, NY

Decades: 1970's, 1980's, and 1990's

The Ramones are the first punk rock band. Other bands, such as the Stooges and the New York Dolls, came before them and set the stage and aesthetic for punk, and bands that immediately followed, such as the Sex Pistols, made the latent violence of the music more explicit, but the Ramones crystallized the musical ideals of the genre. By cutting rock & roll down to its bare essentials -- four chords; a simple, catchy melody; and irresistibly inane lyrics -- and speeding up the tempo considerably, the Ramones ... Read More

Alice Cooper, Chuck Berry, Phil Spector, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, T. Rex, New York Dolls, The Stooges, The Crystals, The Rivieras and The Shangri-Las

Alice in Chains, Black Flag, Faith No More, Green Day, Guns N' Roses, Megadeth, Sex Pistols, Soundgarden, The Clash, Hüsker Dü, Meat Puppets, Motörhead, Queens of the Stone Age, Dead Kennedys, The Dickies, Misfits, The Donnas, The Pretenders, Pixies, Alkaline Trio, Big Black, blink-182, Fountains of Wayne, Goo Goo Dolls, IMA Robot, Rancid, The Distillers, The Replacements, The Vandals, Circle Jerks, Joe Strummer, Godsmack, Sham 69, The Leftovers, Jello Biafra, Ridel High, The Weirdos, The Adverts, Urge Overkill and Melvins